Paintball markers (also referred to as paintball guns) are used in war games normally played between two teams of players trying to capture one another's flag. The game is played in a large field with opposing home bases at each end. All of the players have a paintball marker that shoots paintballs, gelatin-covered spherical capsules filled with paint. When the paintball hits a player the capsule is broken and a mark of paint is left on the players clothes, indicating the hit.
Typically, the conventional paintball marker loader includes a housing which is placed on an upper portion of a paintball marker. The housing is shaped to hold a large amount of paintballs. At the bottom of the housing is an outlet tube through which the paintballs drop either by the force of gravity or by the force of a paintball loader mechanism. The outlet tube leads to the marker, where the paintballs are propelled outwardly from the marker by compressed air.
The main reason to provide a feeding mechanism is that the feeding of paintballs only by force of gravity not works satisfactory. Firstly a high rate of fire, which is essential for the player, can not be achieved merely with a gravity driven feeding. Secondly the force of gravity only works when the marker is held in an upright or close to upright position, and consequently there is no feeding at all when the marker is tilted in certain angles since the paintballs then do not fall into the outlet tube.
This problem can be avoided by providing a paintball loader mechanism which by force inputs the paintballs into the outlet tube and into the marker.
Conventional paintball loaders, as the one described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,502,567 generally involve a fin device of circular shape which is driven with a rotational movement provided by a drive motor arranged beneath the housing and with an axle shaft that is upwardly directed and coupled to the rotational centre of the fin device. The paintballs are pushed by the rotation of the fins of the fin device and are consequently pressed forward and outward from the rotational centre by the centrifugal force. The outlet tube is connected to the housing with its input opening located in the outer wall of the housing. It is thus the rotational speed of the drive motor that presses the paintballs into the opening of the outlet tube and into the marker. This paintball feeding arrangement comprising a housing with the opening input of an outlet tube connected to its circumferential wall and a drive motor connected to its bottom wall constitutes a rather bulky arrangement on top of the paintball marker.
An indicator is arranged to detect when the outlet tube is full, and shut off the drive motor. When the player starts firing, the feeding of the paintballs through the outlet tube is initially very slow since only the force of gravity or any pressure between the stuck paintballs causes them to move into the marker. An indicator in the outlet senses that the paintballs are moving, and starts the drive motor again.
However, the rate of balls being forced down the outlet by the rotor is still not satisfactory. Further, the rotor inertia causes a delay before the drive motor reaches its normal speed, thus reducing the rate of paintballs even further in the beginning of a firing burst.
Although a high feeding speed is desirable, the resulting high stresses on the ball may cause problems with breaking paintballs which leads to fluid leakage in the marker or in the paintball loader itself. Such breakages causes problems for, or even a stop of the feeding of the paintballs.